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Agreement makes move to Tampa doubtful.
By Times staff and wire reports
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 2, 2001
Tampa's dim prospect of hosting consecutive Super Bowls nearly vanished Monday as the NFL neared a deal to keep the game in New Orleans but move it back a week.
The league flirted with moving the game to Tampa or other cities so it could be played Feb. 3. The change allows for a 16-game season and a 12-team playoff after Week 2 games were postponed following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
New Orleans had trouble accommodating the new date because of a major car dealers convention booked for the city, but the league and the National Auto Dealers Association neared an agreement Monday to switch dates.
"This is pretty much what we expected," said Michael Kelly, who coordinated Tampa Bay planning for Super Bowl XXXV. "They made it very clear to us that their first priority was to keep it in New Orleans.
"You had to figure this is what was going to happen because there was so much work and effort already put into it. We always held out a glimmer of hope that we'd get it back to back, but they pretty much told us what to expect."
David Hyatt, a spokesman for the auto dealers association, said the proposal would be considered during a conference call today with the group's governing board.
"I feel this is the first time we've made definite progress toward a solution," he said.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Bloomberg News reported the NFL will pay NADA $7.5-million to cover expenses and contribute an undisclosed amount to the auto dealers' fund to aid the families of victims from the attacks.
New Orleans mayor Marc Morial said he was "99 percent" sure the Super Bowl would stay in the city. He said he talked with NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue twice Monday and "he indicated they were very close" to a deal.
"In the past 24 hours, our fortunes have turned 180 degrees in the positive," Morial said.
A switch with the auto dealers involves arrangements with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of delegates, all of whom have reservations and schedules in place.
Along with Tampa, the NFL considered moving the game to Los Angeles or Miami. Tagliabue said Sunday that Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., was under consideration.
"They talked (Monday) and were confident we could have this resolved as early as (today)," Greg Aiello, NFL vice president of public relations, told Sportsline.com. "We wanted to keep the Super Bowl in New Orleans."
TAMPA BAY BID: Super Bowls have been awarded through 2006, but Kelly said local officials plan to bid for another championship game when the NFL accepts bids for 2007-2009. It likely will be a year or two before the NFL accepts bids for those games, he said.
- Staff writer Darrell Fry contributed to this report.